a pair of gigantic scissors.

a shop window on the haarlemmerdijk.

I love breakfast. It is one of my favourite meals of the day. My other favourite meals of the day are morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea, pre-dinner and dinner (and can dessert count as a seperate meal? In my case it often is). Lovely cafes and restaurants for the other meals of the day are not so difficult to find in Amsterdam. A decent breakfast however, is near impossible.

My English galpal Hayley and I share the same love of breakfast, and having been to Australia Hayley knows that we Aussies are spoilt with fabulous breakfast bars and know how to make a first meal of the day like no other (we concur that the North Americans also do a darn good job at it too). So we are on a mission to find the best (or simply above average) breakfast places around Amsterdam. After a year of heavy research, many breakfast dates and analysis, we’ve found one!

It’s called Letting and is in the Jordaan (on the Prinsenstraat 3 – just off the Keizergracht). It’s lovely – good friendly service (they didn’t hesitate or look at me strange when I asked for milk and honey for my tea!), good food, and a great interior (so very important for the likes of us fussy interior lovers n’est-ce pas?). Although the breakfast menu is not vast, it is very decent. We had the American pancakes with bacon, smothered in delicious maple syrup.

I do have a rule that I have to go an eatery at least 3 times before I announce that it gets the ‘enhance the everyday’ tick of approval but I’ve stretched the rules a bit for this one because after a year of living in Amsterdam, this is all I’ve got for stand-out breakfast suggestions and I’ve only been once.

So when you are in Amsterdam, check out this place for breakfast and then go for a little wander around the area, it is postcard-perfect, every time of year. Enjoy!

xx

PS if you have Amsterdam breakfast place suggestions please leave a comment with the details and Hayley and I will be happy to try it out. But note: to count as breakfast you have to serve it from no later than 8am, and preferably all day, if not at least until mid afternoon, and it has to include more than a piece of bread with cheese on it.

Ever since I arrived in Amsterdam this time last year, I have been living on a houseboat. And I won’t lie to you – it’s the best. I just love it. It’s my little floating hideaway, my sanctuary, my home.

But I will admit, I frequently find myself with green-eyes admiring the many other houseboats lining the city’s canals. They are all unique in their own way and I can’t help but wonder what life might be like on them… “what sort of windows do they have? Big windows? Skylights even? Balcony space? Oh, look, those people are smiling so much more on their boat!” And so on. I know, it’s ridiculous. But seriously, some of these floating homes just make me stop dead in my tracks and sigh: “wow”.

“Hi, my name is Pia, and I have house(boat) envy”…

…knock knock…

…who’s there?

“Pia” “Pia who?”

“PiacanIcomelivewithyou?”

It’s about now that this song comes to mind.

House.
Boat.
Bliss.

I’m super pleased to be able to share with you another collaboration between myself (as stylist), recipe writer + food stylist Yvette van Boven, and photographer Jeroen van der Spek for the second issue of Maria magazine, on all good Dutch newsstands right now. The story called Goud in de mond (gold in the mouth/waking up full of energy), is a series of images + recipes using bread, grains and pulses. Yvette’s yummo recipes featured are irish sodabread, homemade granola, little nut and raisin loaves (seen above), focaccia and an oat, farro, pumpkin and mushroom salad (a personal favourite – it was delish!).

I had fun making a small tiled wall from gorgeous red tiles that I picked out specially for the shoot. The tiles are handmade in portugal and have such a vibrant and deep colour. We used the wall for the granola and sodabread shots (seen above and below).

We also had the treat of going to one of Amsterdam’s best kept bakery secrets called Hartog’s Bakkerij . We were there to photograph the loaf stacks (seen below), and it was awesome being right in the heart of this bustling bakery while all the bakers shuffled around us – mixing dough, sliding trays of sweet smelling speculaas across the shelves, and pulling out golden loaves from the huge ovens.

After shooting this story, it’s officially confirmed:
I.
Love.
Bread.

(Perhaps I am a little bit Dutch after all).